"This, then is our desert:
to live facing despair,
but not to consent.
To trample it down under hope in the Cross.
To wage war against despair unceasingly.
That war is our wilderness.
If we wage it courageously,
we will find Christ at our side.
If we cannot face it,
we will never find him."

Monday, 6 January 2014

The new Calvinism?

George Conger reports here on the New York Times' oddly recent discovery of the 'New Calvinism' ....

"....And on a personal note — when I was a student in the 80′s and 90s the Calvinist comeback was a lively topic of debate. I distinctly recall (then Fr. but later Cardinal) Avery Dulles waxing lyrical on the errors of the new Calvinism from across the tables at Mory’s. New and neo-Calvinism was then engaged in a battle with Narrative Theology or the Yale School for the minds of conservative theological students — a battle that still is being waged today between the Calvinists and the followers of Stanley Hauerwas or Alasdair MacIntyre..."

It will come as no surprise that this blog's sympathies tend to lie more with Avery, Cardinal Dulles (even - perhaps - with Hauerwas and MacIntyre) than the modern followers of the great Genevan, but it would seem that the true spirit of puritan theocracy lives on not in the contemporary reformed tradition with whom we now have a certain affinity (at least with regard to the spirit of the age) but rather in the well-heeled secularist ideologues of equality ('sexual,' in its various manifestations , of course, not material nor, least of all, equality of opportunity) who now lord it over us. Here (from Brendan O'Neill at The Telegraph) is a particularly sad, not to say gross, example of their intolerant methodology:

"....There’s a further profound irony to the censuring of Evander Holyfield: it has been done in the name of tolerance yet it is actually a prime example of intolerance. In the name of promoting society-wide tolerance of homosexuals, we must not tolerate the expression of any criticisms of homosexuality, the anti-Holyfield lobby says. Singer Boy George has even suggested that, post-Holyfield, there should be a “huge sign” at customs saying: “Welcome to Britain – racism, sexism, homophobia and bad hair are not tolerated.” Remarkably, some people think such censuring and punishment of outdated views about women and minorities is a sign that Britain has become more tolerant. Actually it shows the opposite – that Britain is now astonishingly intolerant of anyone who holds the “wrong” views, views that run counter to mainstream thinking, and it will humiliate them in public if they dare to express themselves and warn them to keep their filthy ideologies to themselves. Intolerance is intolerance, whether its aim is to forbid the expression of gay love or to punish the expression of criticisms of homosexuality....."

Simply further evidence that, whereas for their intellectual predecessors freedom was indivisible, for the contemporary 'social liberal', it is just the right (and the obligation) to agree with their prevailing social revolution / reformation .... Or could it be that today's 'liberals' are not liberals at all? Are they, perhaps, 'socialcalvinists', or maybe our far-from- proletarian elite cadres are just sticking with good old Karl?